


gas (1940), edward hopper

by cleanbrew



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (is the general idea), Exasperated Will, Fluff, M/M, Will Graham Helps Himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleanbrew/pseuds/cleanbrew
Summary: Will saves a dog and meets a man, and maybe pretends to be dumber than he really is.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 21
Kudos: 155





	1. i. fortune cookie

He’s wired off too little sleep and too much responsibility, body strung tight with tension feeling like a marionette yanked at, drawn and quartered by too many clumsy hands. Soundtrack: the blink-blink wink of shitty fluorescent lighting. Consistent sibilant snare of low-volume rap courtesy of the gum-popping teenager slumped at the counter, face lit ghost-blue by the glare of their phone. Voices screaming layered thick like hardened grime in his ears.

The package rumples, crinkles under his fingers when he picks it up and sets it down. The scanner beeps. There’s a sheepdog pictured on the front, forward-facing, furry muzzle stretched in a commercial doggy grin. Smiley sheepdog disappears under a swathe of white _Thank You_ plastic and is exchanged for a couple crumpled bills, unearthed from his battered wallet. Briefly he considers the coffee (pitch-black, questionable consistency, stained-on-the-surface pot) offered by this fine establishment and then thinks better of it. 

Outside, the dog growls weakly, lips curling to reveal teeth. She is curled up half-under a bush, panting from pain and stress. The gnarly chunk in her side - likely from a tussle with another stray - weeps, bleeds sluggishly. Her ribs show under her discoloured coat.

“Hi, hi, shush,” he coos best as he can, hand dipping in the package of discount kibble. He comes up with a handful and lays it near her watchful head, retreating to avoid the jump-snare of a defensive bite. By degrees she comes alive, her nose twitching, wheezing quietly with the effort of slanting upright to investigate. She dips her head down, munches, and he exhales.

When she finishes her mouthful, she gazes up at him coolly, expectantly. For the first time in a while he feels something uncomplicated wash over him, cheeks involuntarily dimpling.

It’s as he’s coaxing her into a blanket in the backseat of his car that a car pulls in. It gleams in the moonlight, headlights wince-inducing bright. A sleek black Bentley so out of place it looks stickered into the environment. Absently smoothing behind the dog’s ears, he watches as the engine purrs to a halt and a man unfolds from the driver’s side.

He’s dressed equally (if not more) outrageously incongruous as his car, in a starched-sharp three-piece. Will can’t exactly tell in the dark, but it appears he’s also wearing a tie and shiny fucking shoes. Okay. Wow. Time to go, Graham.

He shuts his door and at the sound the man turns. They are far enough away that Will can only make out the vaguest impression of eyes like hollows as the man inclines his head in greeting. Good Polite Southern Boy upbringing decrees Will nods back.

 _Probably has a body in the trunk_ , Will thinks as he drives off.


	2. ii. mona lisa smile

After a careful scrubbing it turns out that his latest acquaintance is the colour of milky tea. He cleans and dresses her wound and she huffs and puts up with it and takes up residence before the crackling fireplace, seemingly indifferent to the rest of the pack milling excitedly about her dozing form.

He names her _Peanut_ because it’s kind of funny. She laps sleepily at his fingers when he communicates this, delaying his arrival to the scene after a telephoned summons from Jack. Body’s already cold, anyway.

“What’s the dog version of crazy cat lady? Insane dog man?” Beverly quips when she catches him swiping at the fur on his shirt. The dogs wanted to say bye via a chain of cuddles and paws on body parts after he’d showered and stuffed himself into fresh (?) clothes. He let them, in a fruitless attempt to stifle the dread that had begun to build at the flash of Crawford’s name on his phone screen. It’s six a.m. The blanket, stained with Peanut’s blood, is still crumpled in the backseat. He wishes he were home. He wants to stare into the fire and nurse a scotch until his vision goes blurry. He wants his mind to empty. He wants to, he wants to scoop out his brain and leave it at the feet of whomever it may concern, if it means he doesn’t have to _see_.

Unfortunately for Jack, this is not the work of the Ripper. He stomps around and raises his voice at hapless techs and projects a nauseating mix of disappointment and righteous frustration. Unfortunately for Will, this is a spanking brand-new addition to the colourful selection of killers and crime scenes nesting in the back of his head like a collection of particularly quirky postage stamps.

Worse still, there’s a psychiatrist waiting for them - more specifically, awaiting _Will_ ; quaintly unstable dog-hoarding profiler, star in the circles of professional mind-probers (hey look Pap I made it) - in Jack’s office when they return to Quantico.

He introduces himself as Dr. Lecter, picks him apart in pithy, aristocratically accented poetry, and some time partway through the doctor’s sincerely insincere apology Will realises he was the man in the suit at the gas station. They make eye contact. It lasts for split-seconds and an eternity.

Will really wishes he were home.


	3. iii. sketchy motherfucker

_Run fast and far_ , is what his hindbrain blares in bright red like the wailing of sirens. There’s something about the genteel windowpane-clad image of Hannibal that marks him different, sets him apart. In the fawning air-kissing eyes of high society that names him a luminary; blue-blooded king of the court, spewing verses and conducting orchestratic dinners with the refined ease and mastery of the finest connoisseur. But he is also...disjunct, a doll draped in ill-fitting paper cutouts.

They shouldn’t get along. It doesn’t make sense: Will, twitchy shabby fisherman tormented by night sweats. Uncouth, at times. Not so much antisocial as incapable of fraternising with others. Mommy issues, maybe. In all respects, other than _can think like killers_ , so thoroughly pedestrian. Hannibal: one leg over the other perched serene atop his plush upholstery, cradling wine, every motion and intonation restrained steady unshakeable surgeon.

They get along.

They talk. Hannibal feeds him insane gourmet concoctions and calls himself Will’s paddle. Their narrative reads as the headliner of a tottering lamb cosying up to a worldly predator; the latter deigning to take the former under its wing out of whimsy or pity, no one really knows, or truly questions. They assign their interpretations. It’s by all appearances a daddy-long-legs beneficiary deal.

Will should feel powerless, swept up in the tide of altruistic support and mindful tending. He should feel confused, and grateful, and simply ride it all out because it’s fallen into his lap as fleeting fortune does and he should probably make the most of it while he still can.

The pendulum swings, Will sees blood and carnage in his sleep, wakes up freezing in the middle of the road with red-stained feet and then wakes up again in overlarge silk pajamas, Hannibal at the stove fluffing eggs in a pan. It’s unhealthy reliance, this, and he knows he ought to remove himself from the equation as autonomy slips at increasing speed through his fingers like fugitive sand. There’s something about the act of titling himself Will’s paddle, of all the food and the drink and the conversation, of _fostering_ this _dependency_ ; that screams to Will _D A N G E R_.

But when Hannibal cups his cheek in his artist’s hand, smooths a thumb under his eye and kisses him soft and sweet then hungry over a bite of café liégeois ( _“Just for you, since you can’t seem to get enough of my coffee,”_ ), he finds he doesn’t want to let go.

It feels good. It feels like glutting yourself on your favourite thing.

He bites down.


	4. iv. to tell you the truth

Peanut doesn’t like Hannibal. Winston’s lukewarm, still trying to get used to the place. The other dogs warm up to him quickly enough, Buster with exceptional speed, when he establishes himself as Purveyor of Yummy Treats.

“You’re spoiling them,” Will gripes, poking at the tinder in the fireplace. Winston’s tail swipes over his foot; the prime napping spot having been graciously relegated to the pack newbie.

“They’re good dogs.”

“I trained them.” From behind he hears the snapping of their jaws, their contented munching, the rustle of Hannibal’s movement. “What’s in the sausage?”

“It’s pig,” Hannibal says. “I made it myself.”

It’s not that there was a pause, or that he sounded anything other than he usually did. Just - a light flicks, meekly but surely, on.

“Okay.”

Hannibal takes over his kitchen and composes dinner while Will reclines cross-legged on the bed in his living room, leafing blankly through a book to the symphonic clink and peal of culinary implements. The smell of meat sizzling inevitably draws puppy-eyed hopefuls to the scene of gastronomic enterprise; Will clicks his tongue and they begrudgingly lope over. He runs his fingers through their fur, looks at his hands, looks at himself. He wonders what Hannibal sees. He doesn’t bother mulling over what _he_ sees in Hannibal - he’s glimpsed more than enough, right from the start, he thinks. Today was merely a confirmation. Signed, sealed, delivered straight into his face. He almost laughs.

The meat is cooked to perfection, melting in his mouth. He gets his answer as he’s pointedly chewing and swallowing, in Hannibal’s peeled-clean gaze: something precious, heretofore undiscovered, a rare and wondrous delight. Keenness. Potential. Knowing.

They squeeze in Will’s shower. Hannibal takes him to bed and after they talk of everything and nothing at all. They don’t mention the gas station, or the flash of recognition Hannibal had directed Peanut’s way; instead Hannibal voices a request for Will to move in, and Will smiles with teeth and says yes.


	5. v. fengshui

Beverly gives a low whistle when Will extricates himself from the shouting (well, shouting on the part of Jack, incisive criticism cloaked in pleasantry and temperate modulation making up the rest) match in Jack’s office. In the next moment she chokes on air when she catches sight of the ring on Will’s finger.

“Holy fucking shit, Graham.” She gestures wildly in the direction of the office and raises her eyebrows painfully high. “Holy shit?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Hubby wants you safe, huh.” Her eyes go soft.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Hannibal interjects from his position at the door. Will, by now accustomed to Hannibal moving about like a fucking ghost, barely flinches. Beverly’s shoulders go up and her head whips to the side.

“You’ll still be seeing me around,” Will adds. She relaxes, and at this point it’s almost a given to expect an inquiry into the when and how and who.

During intermission, with Will (grumpily) curled into his side, Hannibal regaled a starry-eyed simpering audience with an account of a romantic evening, dinner and a dance and him on his knee at the end of the song. He recounts the same story to Beverly now, all great dramatic relish garnished with a pinch of falsified bashfulness. In actual fact it’s bullshit.

The real thing went more like this:

“In the interests of full disclosure,” Hannibal had pre-empted, leading Will to man tied up in the basement. The ring succeeded the murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really love exasperated will & blatantly weird hannibal, thus. (i think you can tell.) also i just wanted to have fun writing. um. all feedback welcome, leave a comment if you'd like! thanks for stopping by.


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